Category Archives: Word of the Day

Word of the Day: hopefully

Today’s word is the first in a special WOTD series I’ve decided to call Objectionable Words. The word hopefully is an adverb formed from the adjective hopeful. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the word hopefully, at least nowadays. The dictionary informs us that while the word used to be objectionable to usage purists (and let us not deny that it still is), apparently these days it’s considered an acceptable sentence modifier.

But I just don’t like it, okay? It’s one of those words that debases the English language. It’s basically a lazy way of saying, “I’m hopeful that…” or “I hope…”

Examples:

Hopefully the weather will clear up later on today.

Versus:

I hope the weather clears up later on today.

More Boring Grammar Stuff

Hope is a noun; it’s an emotion, like happiness. It can be formed into an adverb by adding adjective-forming suffix “ful” and then the adverb-forming suffix “ly.” However, the noun-forming “ness” suffix does not allow the word happiness to be further formed into an adverb. This is one of the annoying inconsistencies with English grammar. “Happinessly” is not a word, although happily most certainly is.

More on that later…

Word of the Day: bliss

Today’s word is another feeling, more or less the antonym of the word I discussed in an earlier post. Bliss is defined as a state of supreme happiness; utter joy or contentment. In abstract terms, that is. The dictionary defines bliss but it doesn’t discuss what it actually is.

But how could it? Bliss is a very subjective thing and nothing and no one can really tell you how to get it.

You just have to take the late mythologist Joseph Campbell‘s advice and “follow your bliss.” Of course you have to figure out what your bliss is before you can start following it…

So I’ll open this discussion up to the group. What’s blissful to you?

I’ll go first.

Sitting in the sun next to the sea on a warm but breezy afternoon always puts me into a state of bliss. However, sitting with my friends at a table holding up many pints of beer is another blissful experience, albiet a completely different one.

Okay, your turn.

…until next time.

Word of the Day: nerds and geeks and dorks, oh my….

There are a lot of nerd-geek-dork pages on the internet. Examples can be found here, here, and at this page, where the differences between the three are illustrated with a venn diagram. These three terms are often used interchangeably, and quite erroneously, by the ignorant populars and other stupids who are just too cool use Wikipedia. Therefore, as someone who has never been cool and easily fits into all three categories (depending on the situation), I thought I’d try my hand at explaining the differences between the three.

As a service to all the cools, of course.

At the top of the hierarchy is the nerd. A nerd usually possesses a particular aptitude for engineering, science, or computer-related stuff. For example, a computer-type nerd knows everything about computers and can tell you what every single part of a computer does. He or she can build you a computer from the bottom up without looking at any instructions. Nerds can solve any engineering-related problem. Additionally, nerds are often highly educated and have remarkable memories. They have skills that are highly desirable, marketable, and bankable. Thus, many nerds are rich.

Somewhere in between the dork and nerd is the geek. One thing to keep in mind is that nerds can also be geeks, but not all geeks can be nerds. While a geek might possess an encyclopedic knowledge of Star Trek, as well as an extensive collection of Star Wars action figures, he’s usually unemployed and spends most of his time playing World of Warcraft and alphabetizing his collection of Dragonlance novels. His own knowledge is too obscure to be of any practical value, so when his computer crashes he has to seek out help from a nerd.

Finally, at the bottom of the pile are the pure dorks. A dork is someone who does not possess any skills whatsoever. He’s into stuff that even geeks would consider a bit too geeky. A typical dork might collect lunch boxes. He is so socially awkward that the only friends he has are other dorks. Napoleon Dynamite is often cited as an example of the typical dork, but I would argue that his sweet dance moves move him up into the geek category.  Maybe even all the way up to nerd.

Until next time.

Word of the Day: sorrow

Today’s word is a feeling. It’s similar to sadness but it has a different quality. Sadness is fleeting and shallow and easy to overcome. Tripping into a mud puddle while walking home in a downpour with no umbrella might make you sad. But a hot bath and a steaming mug of hot chocolate is all it takes to make your sadness disappear.

Sorrow, on the other hand, is not like tripping into a mud puddle.

Sorrow is like sinking into a deep inky black ocean. Its blackness envelops you as it pulls you down, down, down to the bottom.

The expression “drowning in sorrow” is a fairly accurate description of what it feels like. Often it takes a fully-mounted rescue operation to pull you out of it. But just remember that when you emerge from that deep ocean of pure sorrow, you’ll have a greater understanding and appreciation of pure joy.

“Sorrow is tranquillity remembered in emotion.”
Dorothy Parker

Word of the Day: oxymoron

Today’s word is one of my favorite words in the English language. An oxymoron is not a stupid person (or a stupid ox), but a rhetorical device in which the words that make it up are expressed in a seemingly incongruous or contradictory manner. This is sometimes done deliberately for dramatic effect, i.e.: gentle violence.

The oxymoron can be used for dramatic or ironic emphasis and thus it is often found in poetry, such as in Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter”:

The sun was shining on the sea.
Shining with all his might.
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright.
And this was odd because it was
The middle of the night.

The reader knows that it doesn’t make any sense for the sun to be shining brightly with all his might in the middle of the night, and that’s why this opening stanza is so effective. That and Carroll’s over all poetic brilliance, of course.

There are many different types of oxymorons and Wikipedia does a good job of explaining what they are.  I particularly enjoy the inadvertent oxymorons, which are basically rhetorical mistakes people have made in speech or writing, and they didn’t even realize what they just said or wrote. Examples include:

original copy
extremely average
definite possibility
objective opinion

Some of the above examples have been used so often that one might not even be aware that they don’t actually make any rhetorical sense.

Bye for now.

Word of the Day: the whole enchilada

Today’s word is actually a phrase. More precisely, it’s an idiom. Its meaning is basically the same as the phrases: “the whole ball of wax” and “the whole nine yards,” (among others) meaning “all of it” or “everything we’ve got.”

Finding the origins of idiomatic phrases is not always as straight-forward as one might think.  Like the phrase, “the whole ball of wax,” the origin of “the whole enchilada” is a bit of a mystery. The former phrase is so old that the original meaning has been lost over time, although there are a lot of guesses. Some think it originated with workers at Madame Tassauds, but this is not the case. It’s much older than that.

According to this website, “the whole enchilada” dates back to the 1960s, although the site doesn’t provide any references as to who originally coined it. A similar phrase, “the big enchilada” was forever immortalized when it was mentioned by John Ehrlichman on one of the infamous Watergate Tapes. He was referring to Attorney General John N. Mitchell. In this instance, “the big enchilada” means the same thing as the “the big cheese.”

PRESIDENT: Mitchell, you see, is never, never going to go in and admit perjury. I mean you can uh, talk about immunity and all the rest, but he’s never going to do that.
HALDEMAN: They won’t give him immunity anyway, I wouldn’t think, unless they figure they could get you. He is as high up as they’ve been.
EHRLICHMAN: He’s the big Enchilada

Several minutes of Googling around didn’t reveal any satisfactory explanation for the origin of “the whole enchilada.” Perhaps if I had more time I could dig a little deeper, but for now I’ll leave you with a picture of a tantalizingly delicious-looking “enchilada.”

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Yep, that’s an enchilada. Yesterday, Tobbe and I stopped to grab a bite to eat at a gatukök (Swedish kebab shop and pizzeria) which featured some Mexican dishes in addition to the usual gatukök fare. I ordered the chicken enchilada and that’s what I got. Tobbe ordered a kebab plate and this is what he got:

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That’s a proper kebab plate: a pile of french fries and shaved meat drenched in creamy sauce.

The “enchilada” I got didn’t look like any enchilada I’d ever eaten before, which is why I had to take a picture of it to show the folks back home. But it was actually really good. The sort of bread bowl it came in was crispy and delicious, but I wasn’t able to eat the whole enchilada.

Until next time.

Word of the Day: the long and short of it…

The word antidisestablishmentarianism is the longest “normal” word in the English language. That is to say it’s a word that isn’t a medical term, like for example: hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. Ironically, this is actually the fear of long words. Maybe they should have made it shorter.

However, there is one word (if you could even call it a word) that blows away all the competition for the Worlds Longest Word Lifetime Achievement Award. I found it on this website while searching the intarwebs for long words.

Drum roll please….

methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucyl phenylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyl lysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenyl alanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisol eucylglutamylglutaminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartyl threonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanylglycylalanylaspartyl alanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenyl alanylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolyl threonylisoleucylglutaminylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucyl arginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonyl prolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamyl methionylleucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysyl histidylprolylthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleucylglycylleucyl leucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylvalylphenyl alanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenyl alanyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalyl glycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalyl prolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanyl arginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginyl valylalanylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinyl prolylprolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartylaspartylleucyl leucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycyl arginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginyl alanylglycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginyl arginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleucylasparaginylhistidyl leucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparaginyl alanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanyl glycylisoleucylserylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysyl alanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanylglycylalanylalanylglycyl alanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalyllysylisol eucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucyl glutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyl lysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalan
ylalanylthreonylarginylserine

This nearly 2,000 letter-long monstrosity  (1,913 words to be exact) is the name of some protein. Technically it’s not a word, since who the fuck could ever hope to pronounce that?

Word of the Day: hack

Short but powerful, the word ‘hack’ has multiple lingustic uses. It can be a noun, a verb, an adjective, a verbal phrase and an idiom.

However, I’ve chosen to highlight its use as an adjective.

The word ‘hack’ is a truncation of the word ‘hackneyed,’ which describes something trite and banal.

Example of formal usage:

The lyrics to 13 year-old Rebecca Black’s song, “Friday” are so hackneyed as to be utterly embarrassing.

Example of informal usage:

Jesus H. Christ, they really need to fire the hack writer who wrote that song.